


120 Seconds, Approximately

by MeissaShush



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Gen, Hospitalization, Implied Attraction, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Near Death Experiences, No actual relationships - Freeform, Pre-Canon, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, i guess if you squint, no beta we die like fools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:21:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29345040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeissaShush/pseuds/MeissaShush
Summary: Ignis understood drowning, conceptually. He knew that it hurt.He just had not known how much.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia & Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia, Noctis Lucis Caelum/Ignis Scientia
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60





	120 Seconds, Approximately

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I'm Meissa, but Mei is fine. This is my first time posting fic, so I'm pretty much terrified, but I was encouraged to by some very nice people and I live to please. Or, at least attempt to.  
> I considered gifting it to the people who encouraged me, but I'm thinking it may be better not to. This one is too fresh (I wrote it last night), and I'd rather anything I gift be a) actually somewhat good and b) something they would like.  
> Sorry for the long note, I just wanted to introduce myself and make sure people were aware that this is likely not going to be very good. And to say thanks. Even just taking a second to read this note means a lot to me. I've never really had the courage to share before. It's nice, in the terrifying-awful sort of way. :]

Ignis understood drowning, conceptually. 

He knew the average person could hold their breath for approximately one hundred and twenty seconds before their body would force them to breathe. Averages being averages, one could conservatively estimate that it would occur in ninety seconds instead. He had read about it at length for his training, once when Noctis was first learning to swim, and again before this cruise-ship gala along the coast of Accordo. 

He had read about the symptoms of a near-drowning, pale-cold skin and abdominal swelling and water on the lungs. He had read about the best way to go about helping someone in need, about the panic that would overtake them that could impede rescue attempts, and about the amount of time they could go without help before they were a guaranteed loss. 

He knew that in about ten percent of people, water entering the airways could trigger an immediate contraction of the larynx -a laryngospasm-- which would suffocate them without water even reaching the lungs.

These cases had the best chance of a full recovery. 

He knew that for the other ninety percent, the water would flood into their lungs and remove any chance of oxygen transference to the blood. That every moment after was an effort in futility unless help was already on the way. That every moment they were under, they would be worse off even if they did survive.

He knew, conceptually, that it hurt.

He had never known how _much_ it would hurt.

His lungs ached in his chest as he struggled against the weight of his water-logged clothes. The dead weight of his waistcoat -cotton twill that had _seemed_ a better choice for the high-humidity, but was now wicking away what little warmth he had-- was pressing down on him with the force of the Archean. He was desperate to inhale. To feel his lungs expand. Ignis knew he could not breath in, not even as his lungs screamed for air with every fiber of their being. 

And oh, how they screamed. 

Every motion of his arms felt futile. It was hard to move, hard to _think_ , with the thick oppressive push of the water all around him. When he had first fallen in, he had wasted energy on kicking off his shoes and trying to lose the weight of his suit. Conceptually, doing so would reduce the rate that he was sinking at and making swimming to the surface easier. 

It was not until he had freed his arms from the constricting sleeves of his jacket that he had blinked up through the salt water to see the blurred light above him fading. His hope at survival, fading.

Ignis did not _panic_. He did not. 

But for a moment, he lost all reason in his desperate attempts to swim up. Every inch of him burned from the freezing water. Some hysterical part of him was thankful for it, as it bit at his numb fingertips, knowing that it would at least kill him faster if he could not surface. He tried to choke down that feeling.

Choke it like the ocean was choking him.

He continued to push upward. He knew he needed to keep calm and keep swimming upwards, but the stars in the corners of his eyes brought with them more panic than he knew what to do with. He needed to breathe. He needed to surface. 

Every push forward was like a punch to his chest. 

Ignis wished he could say he thought of Noctis as he struggled upward. That he thought of his - _beautiful_ \-- terrified face, probably in desperate need of a napkin at the rate he had been shoveling hors d'oeuvres into his mouth just moments ago, and found the energy to keep fighting upwards.

Ignis did not think of Noctis. 

He did not think of anything at all. 

He pushed forward once, twice, then felt the fight in him leave.

It was like his brain had shut off. He inhaled, knowing it would fill his lungs with burning seawater. He hoped he was one of the ten percent, in that moment. If only to save himself from the grit and the fire of salt water and the slow onset of anoxia.

He did not delude himself in thinking anyone was coming to his rescue.

He wasn’t that important.

They were all just passing thoughts, barely registering as he opened his mouth to inhale. Hollow and fleeting and gone the second water hit his lungs.

* * *

Ignis wished he had just drowned.

Not because his whole body felt as if it had been torn to shreds. Felt as if part of him was still stuck in the ocean, sunk to the bottom and battered by the current. 

Not because every breath was an exercise in excruciating pain, burning at his throat and lungs as if the Infernian himself had led a siege through him. It had started the second he had taken his first breath, back hard against the floor of a boat and with a stranger’s hands forcing his heart to beat again. It had continued every second after, until he had blacked out and woken up in the bleary lights of a hospital, where it had continued with the added torture of a tube down his throat.

It wasn’t any of that.

No, Ignis wished he had drowned, if only so he did not have to suffer another moment at the wrong end of Noctis’ endless fretting. The young prince had been, to put it bluntly, insufferable in the face of Ignis’ minor incident. 

And it was, by all accounts, a minor incident, thank you very much. 

He had awoken in the hospital not to doctors or nurses, but to a very disheveled Noctis all but curled up in his lap. His suit, which Ignis had spent hours perfecting with the Crown tailor, was bunched and stained from loitering at his bedside. His hair, which Ignis himself had brought to heel after many an hour of effort and far too much gel, was mangled. Simultaneously stuck up and flattened at all the wrong angles. Sweet Astrals, even his nails had been chewed to stubs. All Ignis' hard work, reflected in the tortured nail beds of his charge. Ruined. 

Noctis was a mess.

And he was _fretting_.

The second Ignis had opened his eyes, he had been a flurry of words and motions that blurred together into a blind panic. Even after nurses had come and gone, assuring the Prince that Ignis was on the mend, he hovered needlessly and jumped to call for help at any noise Ignis deigned to make. Not that Ignis deigned to make many. He was not the sort to complain. Not for something so inconsequential as discomfort when breathing or the too-tight feeling of his skin.

He did, however, complain about Noctis’ priorities.

The event of an advisor finding themselves injured in an accident was no cause for one to shirk their duties at an internationally significant event, especially when one was the Crown Prince of Lucis. It certainly was not cause for Noctis to not only leave in the middle of the gala, but then go on to refuse to attend any of the other events. Events that Ignis had spent the last three months meticulously preparing His Royal Highness for, mind you. Ignis had reminded him as such, between shuddering breaths that stole what little energy he had for scolding, every moment he could.

“I’m not leaving you, Iggy,” Noctis whispered -whispered! As if Ignis was going to be felled by so much as a normal tone of voice!-- to him from his perch at his bedside. “As soon as you’re cleared to travel, we’re going home so you can recover in peace.”

“That is unacceptable-” Ignis had begun, only to be interrupted by another bout of wracking coughs that left him wrung out and the Prince’s face pinched in concern. 

Ignis had half a mind to have Noctis chased from his bedside, if only to slow the inevitable lines the boy would prematurely develop if he kept making that face at Ignis. It had nothing to do with how he ached to reach up and rub away the tension with his own battered hands. It had nothing to do with the way that look made Ignis feel so incredibly small.

None whatsoever.

Alas, Ignis had found his own concerns for the reputation of Lucii royalty had been overruled by the royal family itself. His Majesty had even made an appearance at his bedside, an auspicious event that Ignis was regrettably half-drugged out of his mind for, to explain that they would be pulling Noctis and his retinue out of all diplomatic events immediately following the incident. That it was best for them all if the Prince be seen home. Best for Ignis to recover in Insomnia. To that end, Ignis did have to relent. Far be it for him to disagree with his King. 

Still, he felt it all rather extreme. He was a minor servant, after all.

He had expressed as much to Gladiolus, who had taken up the Prince’s vigil in a desperate bid to get the boy to sleep. Ignis found himself very glad that Gladio was here. He told himself it was because it assured him someone was watching out for his charge in his absence. That it had nothing to do with how the older boy held his hand reassuringly, when it was too hard to sleep through the burning in his lungs.

The Shield-To-Be had been asked to go with the Prince on this diplomatic trip, as both practice for his inevitable future and as an exercise of his diplomatic abilities. Originally, Ignis had been somewhat against it, as he worried that Gladio would be just another social faux pas waiting to happen. He had to graciously redact that statement during their etiquette rehearsals, when Gladiolus -"Call me Gladio"-- Amicita had flawlessly led Ignis through a waltz and three suitably charming conversations all while avoiding any probing question Ignis had sent his way. He would redact it again at the gala, when the few moments he had looked away from his unruly charge had been spent appreciating the cut of Gladio's suit silhouetted against the setting sun.

“This is ridiculous. They should be carrying on with the schedule as planned, not calling off all of his appearances over an accident.”

“Ignis, nothing about this was an accident. I was watching from across the deck. I saw him push you.”

Ignis closed his eyes against the words, refusing to acknowledge the way they matched with his spotty memory of the night. Of the overtly forward ambassador, who smelled of one too many fruity drinks and perhaps a bit of vomit, with the wandering hands. Of his own, less than courteous, rebuffs to the advance. Of the aggression that reared its ugly head at the rejection.

“It’s hardly of consequence. I am but a minor servant to the Crown. There is no reason for all these theatrics.”

“You're Noct’s _advisor_.”

“And I am _advising_ ,” he wheezed, “him to continue with the schedule I so painstakingly prepared him for.”

“Yeah, not happening. Doc says you're cleared to leave tomorrow, so we’re heading home.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Yeah, you are. Now get some rest.”

* * *

Ignis looked like hell.

When Ignis had woken up from his light doze -the best he could do in the circumstances,-- he had felt very much more alive. Alive enough to properly consider the situation he had found himself in. He had to have all the variables. This included, of course, his appearance.

It had taken several minutes to convince Gladio to let him borrow his phone. He had to promise not to snoop, nor to attempt to access his own email account and -gods forbid-- get some work done. He would have simply used his, except it was skittering somewhere across the sea floor, lost forever along with the few photos he had of his family. He did not think about that as he swiped open the Shield's phone, dismissing the lock screen of a very petulant looking Iris in a chocobo costume in favor of the camera application.

He had to squint in order to see clearly enough, his glasses also regrettably lost to the tide, and it did his reflection no favors. Harsh sunken bags under his eyes from insufficient sleep. Skin; pale and papery. There was still dried blood on the edges of his nostrils, and he repressed the urge to scrape at with his nails. His torn and battered nails.

The thought of his King seeing him like this, with his hair matted with long-since evaporated salt water and lips torn to bleeding, made him want to defenestrate himself. He was a poor excuse of an advisor. Foolish enough to stand too close to the balustrade on a boat. Tactless enough not to seamlessly smother the drunken ire of a non-too-important Altissian ambassador.

Gladio took the phone from his hands. He hadn't realized they had been shaking. He was a poor excuse of an advisor indeed, not to be able to repress that, too.

"Talk to me, Ig. What's going on in that big dumb head of yours?"

"Nothing of consequence, I assure you." His voice cracked around the vowels. 

The urge to fling himself out the window grew.

"Yeah," Gladio rolled his eyes. "Because that's convincing."

Gladio sat back in his chair beside Ignis' bed. They both sat in what would have been silence, if not for the endless beeping of the heart monitor the nurses had insisted he had to remain attached to for the entirety of his stay. Ignis once again fought the urge to simply unplug the thing. He stared at the far wall, instead.

Gladio sighed.

"Look, we've got maybe ten minutes before his royal sleepiness is back in here with a change of clothes for you. If you don't want _him_ badgering you, you should get it off your chest now. You're not exactly succeeding at keeping it off your face."

Ah, another strike against him. Ignis was on a losing streak, it seemed.

"...It should not have happened."

"No," Gladio ground out, jaw tight. "It damn well shouldn't have."

"My apologies. The fault was entirely my own. Had I-"

"No, fucking stop. No." Gladio held up a firm hand, as if to physically stop the words from coming out of his mouth. 

He dropped the hand a few seconds later, in favor of grabbing Ignis' instead. Their fingers tangled easily, as if they had ever done this before this incident. It pulled at Ignis' heart in ways he dared not examine. Galdio’s face was scrunched in something approaching anger. Ignis looked away.

"Gladio-"

"Nope. Be quiet. I need a few seconds to find words."

They sat in the almost-silence for longer than Ignis could stand. He turned to look at Gladio, who glared him back into silence. Eventually, Gladio continued.

"This," Gladio made a broad gesture, "ain't your fucking fault."

"I'd beg to differ."

"Then you'd be wrong, which is pretty fucking funny because I thought you were supposed to always be right."

Ignis frowned. "Yes, well, it seems I am far more fallible than anticipated."

"Shut. Up. You were assaulted, Ig. Actually, it's likely to be ruled as attempted homicide. They're pressing for more."

"It was an accident-"

"The fucker _shoved you off a boat at sea_."

"I assure you, it was not that dramatic."

"Looked pretty damn dramatic to me, considering I had to hold Noct back from jumping in after you."

"My thanks for that."

"I don't want your thanks. If I didn't have to hold him back, _I_ would have gone in after you."

"You'd have been a fool."

"I have been trained for this my whole life. We drill water rescues every year. It should _not_ have taken that long for them to get you out."

"It was hardly a priority, I'm sure-"

"That ship was filled with most of the important people this side of Eos. They had no idea who fell in. It. Should. Not. Have. Happened. What if it had been Noct?"

"-by the Astrals that-"

"-would have been the end of the fucking Accordo agreement, in the very fucking least."

"In the absolute least," Ignis spat.

The idea of it being Noctis, tugged under by the current. His bright blue eyes being choked out by the sea water. His face, twisted in agony as he fought his own lungs not to breathe in. Ignis blinked back the sudden rush of fear that had welled up at the thought. His heart monitor was making panicked little blips.

"Then why is it any different that it was you?"

Ignis startled at the thought, then scoffed.

"I am just a servant-"

"Bullshit. You're Noctis' primary advisor. His oldest friend. You have more clearance than I do, right now. Attacking you is the same damn thing as attacking the prince, far as we're concerned."

"...I'm sure he simply didn't realize who I was."

" _I_ had to memorize everyone on that damn boat. Faces, titles, everything. I’m not even part of these talks. He knew who you were."

Ignis was quiet at that. The heart monitor was still betraying him. He couldn't keep the image of Noctis lost to sea out of his mind.

"I should have been more careful," he said, voice small. 

He blinked back the wetness in his eyes. Gladio thankfully did not draw attention to it. He did squeeze Ignis' hand, however.

"No one blames you, Iggy. It wasn't your fault. Not even you can plan against crazy. So stop beating yourself up about it and focus on getting better, okay? I don't want to be in charge of herding Princess around any longer than I have to. He's been a fucking nightmare. I don't know how you do it."

Ignis laughed at that, the sound both wet with tears and rough with coughs. Gladio squeezed his hand again.

"Of course. How dare I inconvenience you in such a way, Lord Amicitia. I will endeavor to relieve you of such an arduous task as soon as I am well."

"Not a second sooner though, yeah?"

Ignis snorted, gracelessly.

"Not a second sooner."

* * *

When Noctis finally arrived, Ignis' heavy-ass luggage dragging noisily behind him, he almost tripped over himself at the sight of his advisor smiling. 

Ignis hadn't smiled since the night on the boat. Noct had told him his tarts were better than the over-sweet bullshit they were serving and he had smiled, indulgent, while scolding Noctis for his language. It had been a wisp of a thing, barely there for more than a breath. Noctis held onto it like a life raft.

He had been playing it over and over in his head, every moment he had spent looking down at the washed out shell of his friend in a hospital bed. Every moment the older boy had insisted, between soul-crushing wheezes, that Noctis leave his side. Every moment he insisted that the fucking _schedule_ was more important than making sure that he was still breathing. As if every time Noctis shut his eyes, he didn't see Ignis disappear off the edge of the boat again in slow motion. 

He had been afraid he'd never see Ignis' smile again.

It had taken all of his self control not to throw himself at him right then and there. To not bury his head into the brunette’s shoulder and squeeze his relief into him. Because this was _Ignis_ , and Ignis would not suffer through such emotional displays.

At least, not in a public hospital. Not with Crownsgaurd standing just outside the room and staff coming in and out at any moment.

Instead he made some passing complaint about how much Ignis' suitcase weighed, despite the fact that it was smaller than any of Noctis' own and that there was only the one. It fell a little awkward in the room, as anything Ignis had to say was interrupted by an awful coughing fit. Gladio had picked up the slack, ribbing Noctis for being too weak to carry around a rolling suitcase, and Noct was for once thankful for it. They bantered back and forth as Noct settled onto the side of the bed, content to let the matter of getting Ignis into normal clothes and begin the process of getting out of this fucking country wait until he was breathing a little easier.

Noctis was gracious enough not to mention the half-dried lines of shed tears on his advisor's face. Gracious enough not to mention that Ignis was still holding Gladio's hand.


End file.
